


His Cup of Sea

by Bansheebender, LinneaKou, louciferish



Series: Narwhal Selkie AU [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, M/M, MerMay, Minor Injuries, Nudity, Selkies, Sort Of, narwhal selkie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 23:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18838693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bansheebender/pseuds/Bansheebender, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneaKou/pseuds/LinneaKou, https://archiveofourown.org/users/louciferish/pseuds/louciferish
Summary: The first time Yuuri spotted the creature just off the shoreline, he thought it was a dolphin.Narwhal. Yuuri had never seen one before, hadn’t expected to see one here, and he fumbled in his pocket for his phone to take a photo.By the time he got the camera up, it was gone.





	His Cup of Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ravensmores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravensmores/gifts).



> This has been in the works for A LONG TIME and would not exist if not for the support and enthusiasm of Lii and Mimi. This is a collaborative project, based on [this original outline](https://louciferish.tumblr.com/post/180597351208/if-youre-still-doing-the-au-thing-victuuri) from an AU ask game on tumblr.
> 
> You can find a ton of beautiful art, including but not limited to narwhal!Victor, on Mimi's instagram [here](https://www.instagram.com/mimiaguilar/).

The first time Yuuri spotted the creature just off the shoreline, he thought it was a dolphin. 

There was something about the way it bounded in and out of the waves so playfully, its skin a slick grey mottled with white. The sight forced Yuuri to stop on the beach, surprised by the sight. His research on the climate in this part of Russia had mentioned reindeer—a lot—and whale watching, but never dolphins.

Yuuri had finally decided that it _wasn’t_ a dolphin, but most likely a very large seal, when it surfaced again, the horn on its face thrust out of the sea like a rapier.

 _Narwhal_. Yuuri had never seen one before, hadn’t expected to see one here, and he fumbled in his pocket for his phone to take a photo. 

By the time he got the camera up, it was gone.

He slowly lowered his phone back to his side, scanning the waves for another glimpse of the sleek grey back, but all he could see was the blue and white swirl of the water as it climbed the pebbled beaches, seeking spaces between the rocks. 

A stiff, salty breeze slapped Yuuri across the face, and he zipped his jacket higher, raising his shoulders against the wind. Articles online about the resorts in northern Russia had promised Yuuri seclusion and a “cool” summer. Compared to July in Hasetsu, “cool” was an understatement—the mornings were as icy as the Barents sea itself, and Yuuri hadn’t packed a heavy coat. 

Seclusion, on the other hand, he had in spades. As he shuffled along the beach, back to the resort cottage where he was staying, the only other pedestrians on the trail were the murre birds, picking between the rocks for scraps to eat. Yuuri had wanted space to think. He was getting more than enough of that. Unfortunately, he had yet to find any answers.

As he closed cottage door behind him, a chill hit, and Yuuri shivered. It was colder inside than it was on the beach, the overnight chill clinging in the shadows of the little house. He kept his jacket on as he toed his shoes off and latched the door. Dina and Mikhail, his hosts at the resort, were nice enough, but they were also nosy. His first day, he’d left the door unlocked on a walk and returned to find a fresh loaf of bread in his kitchen—and his dirty clothes missing. He knew the intent was polite, but he prefered privacy.

The cottage was what some might kindly call “quaint” or “rustic”. In more realistic terms, it was old, small, and in need of repairs. It wasn’t much more than a single room with scuffed wooden floors. The rickety double bed in the corner had springs that squealed at the lightest touch, and a simple kitchenette on the back wall was cobbled together from cupboards and appliances that didn’t even try to match. The decor wasn’t what mattered to Yuuri, though. He had food and a place to sleep. He had wanted to get away, and you couldn’t get much farther away from Japan _or_ Detroit than this.

Yuuri padded over to the kitchen counter, where his empty tea cup from the morning rested. He tossed the cold, limp bag away and put the kettle back on the hot plate to start a new pot. As he waited for the water to boil, he fished his phone from his pocket once more.

The narwhal was still on his mind, like a glimpse at another world, magical. Even without pictures to prove it, Yuuri wanted to tell someone. He opened his messages and pulled up the most recent text Phichit had sent him.

 _When are you coming back?_ it asked. It was dated a week ago. Beneath it, a blue check showed that Yuuri had seen the message already, but still hadn’t replied.

He put his phone away and went back to his tea.

-

Narwhals traveled in groups. Yuuri knew that, having spent the night after his first sighting deep in the hole of Wikipedia, yet he kept seeing _his_ narwhal alone. 

It wasn’t there every time Yuuri walked along the beach, but it hadn’t left the area. Sometimes, Yuuri would catch only a glimpse—the spout of air and water from a blowhole, meters offshore, too far away to really be certain it was the same creature, but other times it would dart in, skipping among the waves, so close to the pebbled beaches that he could make out its whole body from tip to tail. After most of a week, he was beginning to recognize its markings—Yuuri’s narwhal was still mostly grey, but it had a white freckling along the tail, some darker spots on its back, and at the head, a splotch of white that was sort of heart-shaped. 

Yuuri was also beginning to worry. The narwhal came so close to the shore at times that Yuuri’s heart would race. He could find no record online of a narwhal ever beaching itself, but other species did. Why was it alone? The longer his glimpses of it lasted, the more concerned he became. He began to worry that the narwhal could be sick, or otherwise in danger.

As he left the cottage one day, locking up as usual, he was relieved to see one of his hosts, Dina, walking down the path toward him. Dina was a thick, grandmotherly woman with a weathered brown face and flyaway grey hair she kept trapped beneath a hat, which she tied securely beneath her chin to keep the sea breezes from carrying it off. She reminded Yuuri of some of the Russian coaches he’d met as a skater, who often seemed both harsh and caring at once. When she spotted Yuuri outside, she quickened her stride.

“Yuuri,” Dina called, her accent thick on the rusty, limited English that was their only shared language. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he returned. He hadn’t been very sociable since he arrived, looking for solitude and put off by his hosts’ eagerness to invade that privacy, but this time Yuuri lingered by the door, waiting for Dina to catch up with him. She had lived in this area her whole life, as had Mikhail, her husband. If anyone in the area needed to be warned about the narwhal, the two of them would know.

“Everything good?” Dina asked, craning her neck to look around him in the window. 

Yuuri tried hard not to be put off by the blatant spying. “Yes, it’s great. I’m very comfortable.”

Dina nodded, bobbing her head like one of the birds on the beach. “Good, good,” she said. “Nice vacation?”

“Yes, thank you.” Yuuri was never sure what to say to Dina and Mikhail. For one thing, he wasn’t certain how much English they truly understood. His own grasp of Russian was limited to a few pleasantries, and nearly useless in the nearby town, as most of the locals spoke in an indigenous dialect that Yuuri had never encountered prior to arriving.

Still, he felt the need to make an effort, for the narwhal’s sake. “There’s a… there’s a narwhal,” he said, gesturing down the path in the direction of the shore and hoping that the word was the same. How to say narwhal in Russian? “It’s alone and near the beach. I’m worried. Should I call someone?”

Dina smiled brightly, the whites of her teeth neon between her tree bark lips. “Yes, yes,” she said. “Narwhal. Charter boats at the port in town—narwhal, beluga, bowhead, and walrus.” She nodded, gesturing up the path toward the village.

Yuuri shook his head. For a moment, he thought he’d gotten through, but the old woman thought he was asking about the whale watches the area offered for tourists. “No, not that.” He pointed down the other path, the one that lead to the shore. Maybe he could make himself understood if he showed her. “Come, please.”

As he lead the way down to the shore, Yuuri checked back over his shoulder frequently to make sure Dina was still following. The nearer they got to the water, the closer the old woman wrapped her shawl over her shoulders, but she pressed on, picking her way across the trickiest sections of the path with practiced ease. At last, they reached the highest part of the outcropping, overlooking the pebbled beach below.

Yuuri scanned the waves for a spout of water, a glimpse of sleek silver or the tip of a horn, but of course it was nowhere to be found. Maybe the creature had finally left and moved on. But, Yuuri had thought that before. He pointed out to the water, and Dina followed his finger.

“There,” he said. “That’s where I saw it. The narwhal.”

Dina’s smile receded like a rock being swallowed by the tide. She stared out at the water and pursed her lips, then turned to Yuuri with flashing grey eyes. “No,” she said. “No narwhals here.”

“Not right now,” Yuuri conceded. “But yesterday I saw-”

“No,” the woman repeated, solid and clear. “No narwhals. You see things. Beluga, probably.”

Yuuri had always lacked confidence in himself, but he’d never doubted the evidence of his own eyes. He pressed again, certain it was no hallucination. “It’s only one narwhal,” he insisted. “I’ve been seeing it for days now.”

“Dreaming,” Dina said, shaking her head. “Nice dream, but no narwhals here.”

“It wasn’t a dream.” But Dina didn’t even appear to be listening to him anymore, her face turned away, looking back over the hill toward the cottage. Yuuri clearly wouldn’t be able to pry any blood from that stone. Defeated, he sat down in a dip in one of the boulders nearby. 

“Thank you for your help,” he told Dina, tamping down on the acid in his tone. “Have a nice day.”

With a nod, the old woman began to shuffle back up the path and left Yuuri alone on his perch. He folded his legs up in front of him, resting his head on his knees, and stared out at the ocean below. 

Somewhere near the horizon, a gush of water and air blew up from beneath the waves—the tell-tale spout of a blowhole—but the movement was too far out for him to tell if the narwhal was responsible. Yuuri sat for a long time, waiting, but whatever it was, it never came any closer to land that day.

-

Yuuri slept fitfully that night and woke with the dawn. The air outside of his bed was still thick with a deep chill, and the only thing that stopped Yuuri from burrowing even further beneath his sheets was the fact that his toes would poke out over the footboard. Even layered three deep, the heavy woolen blankets his hosts provided weren’t quite long enough to cover him fully. 

When he first stirred from a confusing dream, it was still dark out, but soon red morning light was streaming through the gaps in the curtains, its curled fingers reaching for his eyes.

With only ten days left in his vacation, the threat of Yuuri’s return to normal society lurked on the horizon as well. He still hadn’t made up his mind what that meant—returning to Detroit to develop new programs, or bringing his figure skating career to a not-so graceful close—but either way, the future was coming for him. 

If he was going to be awake anyway, he might as well do something. Like ripping off a bandaid, he swung his legs over the edge of the double bed and sat up, shoving the covers away. In a few minutes, he was bundled up for a run and tying his sneakers on at the door. He’d packed on too much weight from visiting his family. If he was going to skate again—still a big if—that would be the first hurdle to overcome.

The clouds hanging overhead were still pink and gold, and the moon hung high and full in the sky, like a winking silver medal beckoning Yuuri to chase it. He set off along the path at an easy pace, unused to running on loose stones. A twisted ankle at this point would be a pretty strong sign from the universe about the future of his career, but Yuuri had no interest in tempting fate or injury. He was careful. 

As a boy, still training at Ice Castle, he had often started his morning with runs along the beach. Just after dawn, the shore was untouched, and it was a good opportunity to find little treasures on top of the sand—delicate gifts from the sea that might have been shattered under someone else’s foot an hour or two later. Curious as to what the Barents would give him, Yuuri swerved off the main pathway to the village and opted to detour along the beach.

No matter where in the world he might travel, the ocean always spoke the same language. The water was steel blue, and the white peaks of the waves gilded by the dawning sun. Yuuri ran with his head turned, staring out toward the sea, but saw no sign of the narwhal—or anything else, for that matter. 

Reminding himself that he should watch his feet, Yuuri forced himself to look ahead, and his stomach twisted with dread.

Some meters away on the shore, something silver and white lay motionless. 

He had left his glasses on the bedside table when he left the cottage, so from a distance he couldn’t make out anything but the size and color. Worried that the narwhal had in fact beached itself, Yuuri began to sprint, ignoring the slip and scatter of the stones beneath his feet.

When he reached the shape on the shore, he skidded to a halt, his sneakers sending up a spray of pebbles. Although some of them rained down on the man lying beneath Yuuri, they didn’t seem to phase him.

Yuuri froze, staring. The man was naked. 

That was impossible to ignore—naked and pale, his skin almost translucent. Although his unconscious face was unlined, his hair was entirely silver and spread out on the beach, long and gleaming. Occasionally, as the sea came in, it caught the strands, dragging tendrils of hair out into the water, waving about like the stings of a strange new jellyfish.

At first, Yuuri thought perhaps the man was dead, but his chest rose and fell with the tide. Yuuri’s next thought was that he was _drunk_. After all, what other reason would someone in their twenties strip naked and pass out on a public beach? But then Yuuri saw the blood.

The gash ran red up from the man’s ankle to his calf, sluggishly seeping bright red on the stones. It was impossible to tell how big or deep the wound really was beneath all the blood, but it looked nasty—dangerous. Yuuri glanced around quickly, searching for a broken bottle or something, anything that could have caused this injury. He found nothing aside from a few dark drops of dried blood on the stones and a strange grey coat lying in a lump a short distance away.

Maybe the man had run afoul of a polar bear? That would be odd, but at this point still not the strangest thing that had happened to Yuuri on this trip. Regardless, it wasn’t safe for the man to lie exposed on the beach, and it probably wasn’t safe for Yuuri either.

He bent down and shook the man’s shoulder, but his body rose and fell with no response, a dead weight. 

Yuuri could run for help, but the village was fifteen minutes or more in one direction, and Dina and Mikhail were twenty minutes in the other. He couldn’t just leave the man here in the meantime, exposed to the elements, waiting for the bears to come back. Yuuri’s cabin was the closest.

Steeling himself, Yuuri snatched up the discarded coat. Its fabric was soft and supple, though Yuuri couldn’t put a finger on what it was. It felt at times almost leathery, and in the next moment, velveteen. 

Yuuri wrapped the coat over the sleeping man, trying his best to cover his nudity well enough that Yuuri wouldn’t accidentally touch something he shouldn’t. The process involved a lot of adjustment, and by the end Yuuri could feel heat suffusing his face to the tips of his ears, but the man showed no signs of waking.

With no other option, Yuuri bent at the knee and hoisted the man over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. 

The other man was tall—taller than Yuuri—but remarkably light. Though Yuuri staggered at first to find his balance, once he had his center of gravity back, the weight wasn’t too bad. 

Of course, the coat immediately fell open, exposing the man’s bare rear end to world, directly beside Yuuri’s face. Flushed and mortified though no one was there to see it, Yuuri scrambled to cover him. He kept one arm wrapped over the coat, holding it in place as he hurried back up the hill to his cottage. Despite the jostling journey, the man still didn’t stir, even when Yuuri had to fumble to unlock the door and the coat fell open again.

At last, he managed to wobble inside with his burden. The living area held only a small loveseat for furniture—not long enough for Yuuri to lie down on, much less his new guest—so Yuuri carried the man over to his own bed and carefully let him down. Despite his effort, the limp weight of the man’s head flopped down hard on the pillow, bouncing. At that, he stirred somewhat, his brow furrowed and his lips moving, but he showed no sign of waking just yet.

“Stay here,” Yuuri said, stupidly. Where was he going to go? But the instinct to explain himself was too strong. “I’m going to go get help. I’ll be right back.” He pulled the coat over the man’s nudity and made sure both his feet were on the mattress. The wound in his leg was still oozing blood, and Yuuri could now see spatters on his own shirt, but there was no helping it. He could wash the blankets and such later.

He didn’t bother to lock up as he left, knowing he would be coming right back. Yuuri set off at a brisk jog, up the hilly path to where Dina and Mikhail lived. The sun had risen fully by now, but it was still early, and the gold sphere on the horizon aimed right for his eyes as he ran. This was not how he’d planned to get his exercise for the day.

The porch light at the house burned bright from the night before, and Yuuri could only hope his hosts were awake already. If they turned him away or didn’t answer, he didn’t know where else to go.

Yuuri ran up to the front door and began to knock, rapid but not pounding, because he was still apprehensive about pulling his hosts from their bed despite the urgency. There was no sound beyond the thick wooden door of the home, which wasn’t much bigger than Yuuri’s cottage, but after a moment he saw the eyelet lace curtains sway in the nearest window—movement. 

The door creaked open and Mikhail’s weathered face squinted up at him. Despite his short stature, Yuuri quailed under the old man’s sharp gaze. As Phichit might put it, Mikhail looked like a man who had “seen some shit”, and it was possible that shit was Yuuri.

But there was a situation at hand, more important than Yuuri’s nerves. He swallowed his intimidation. “Please, come,” he begged, keeping things simple and urgent. “Someone’s been hurt.”

Mikhail didn’t even hesitate. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him. Beneath the watery porch light, Yuuri could see he was already dressed in a long-sleeved shirt and pants in a thick, water-resistant material that made a swishing noise with every step he took. “Show me,” Mikhail said, nodding down the path.

Yuuri led the way back. The pace was slower even though it was downhill, because the old man wouldn’t—or couldn’t—run, but he walked briskly enough, and they soon arrived at the cottage. Yuuri pushed the door open and pointed Mikhail toward the bed where his guest lay, still unmoving.

Mikhail took one step into the cottage, then another, and stopped, still some distance away from the bed. The color drained from his sun-worn features, and he took a step back. Raising one hand, he made a strange gesture. Yuuri had seen JJ cross himself before performances, but that wasn’t what Mikhail did. Whatever it was, it didn’t look friendly.

Muttering something in the local dialect, Mikhail turned and went for the door. As he passed, Yuuri shot out a hand, catching him by the arm. The old man turned to him with a withering glare.

“Can you help?” Yuuri asked.

Mikhail responded in a loud string of words Yuuri couldn’t vaguely understand, then finally barked out, “No!” He shook Yuuri’s hand off, then stormed out. The door slammed behind him with a tone of finality.

Left alone in the cottage with nowhere else to turn, Yuuri glanced over at the sleeping man. He was still aside from the slow rise and fall of his chest, and other than the length and color of his hair, there didn’t seem anything remarkable about him—certainly nothing that would inspire the violent reaction Mikhail had. Maybe he was a local, and Mikhail knew something Yuuri didn’t? 

It was all too bizarre, but it didn’t change the fact that there was a man bleeding on Yuuri’s bed. Someone would have to help, and it seemed Yuuri was the only one left.

He began by taking off his shirt and bundling up the man’s coat, both of which were spotted with blood. The blanket on the bed was soaked as well, but that would have to wait. There was no laundry in the house, so Yuuri left both items in the kitchen sink to rinse, then prepared a wet washcloth.

Yuuri had never needed to clean any wound bigger than a paper cut or a scrape, but the principle was the same. He dabbed at the unbroken skin around it to wash the blood, then gingerly cleaned the injury itself. With the excess dried blood gone, he could make out the shape of three sharp gashes, placed from the bottom of the man’s calf to just above the ankle. The polar bear theory was still on the table, although it was _strange_.

Once everything was clean, Yuuri dug around in the bathroom and uncovered a first aid kit. The injury might need stitches, but that was so far out of Yuuri’s wheelhouse that he wouldn’t know where to begin. Afterward, he could look into contacting the nearest hospital, but for the time being he wrapped the leg in clean white bandages and hoped it was sufficient.

Through it all, the sleeping man barely moved, even as Yuuri folded the blanket up over him. He wasn’t shivering or showing any signs of hypothermia, but it was hardly warm outside on the beach, and the water was far too cold for skinny dipping.

Yuuri returned to the kitchen and fixed himself a snack, as his stomach was now loudly reminding him that he’d skipped breakfast. Once he’d taken care of that, he washed the items he’d left to soak. He didn’t have much practice getting blood out of things, but the stains seemed to come right off the grey coat, though brownish splotches still clung to Yuuri’s shirt. He sighed, frowning down at the spots. Well, it might still be wearable for cleaning, and if nothing else, he’d have an option if he ran out of bandages in the first aid kit. He hung both items outside the closet to dry.

As soon as Yuuri stopped moving, exhaustion settled over him. Lack of sleep mixed with stress and the effort of cleaning everything were conspiring against him. He eyed the stranger taking up half his bed. Lying down next to a naked man whose name he didn’t even know might not be polite, but then, there would be a blanket between them. Yuuri could keep to the other side. Besides, he wasn’t going to fall asleep or anything. He would just stretch out, sit up against the headboard, and rest for a minute. He needed to keep an eye on the stranger anyway. 

Yuuri crawled onto the bed and winced as the springs protested, trying not to jostle the mattress too much, but the stranger didn’t move, and Yuuri soon settled in. He watched the blanket wrapped over the man rise and fall at a steady pace. Yuuri had never shared a bed with anyone before. Watching someone else sleep was… soothing.

Without meaning to, Yuuri closed his eyes for a moment to rest. He fell asleep.

-

Yuuri woke slowly, swaddled in confusion. He’d heard something —something strange. It had seeped into his dreams until his unconscious mind decided it was an alarm clock and roused him, blinking. He was on his side, facing the wall, and through the curtains bright sunlight was spilling across the floor and onto the bed.

He heard the noise again, and sat up with a jolt. The stranger. 

Yuuri turned, and the first thing he saw was _blue_. The man was awake, watching Yuuri, and his wide eyes were so blue that Yuuri couldn’t begin to describe them. The sea and sky together wouldn’t do them justice. For a moment, Yuuri was simply floored by the color.

Then, he realized those eyes were _frightened_.

Yuuri scrambled off the bed, face heating at being caught in this situation—shirtless, sharing a bed with a naked man of unknown origin. Phichit would have a field day if he heard about this, and Yuuri made a mental note to never tell him. 

As Yuuri stood at the end of the bed, the man’s gaze darted around the room. His eyes fixed on something just over Yuuri’s shoulder, and he cried out—a soft, moaning cry like a wounded animal. He turned, trying to leave the bed himself, but winced and drew back when his injured foot touched the floor.

“Be careful,” Yuuri said. “Don’t hurt yourself any more. I’m sorry to alarm you, but I found you like this and…” Yuuri trailed off, seeing no sign of recognition on the man’s face. Of course, he probably didn’t even speak English. 

He was also still fixated on something behind Yuuri, who turned around to see what it might be. The grey coat was hanging against the wall, on a coat hanger outside the closet.

“Oh,” Yuuri exclaimed. “Do you want your coat back?” He hadn’t found any pockets on it, and not even a tag, but maybe it was handmade and held emotional value. Yuuri pulled it down and crossed the short distance to the bed, holding it out. “It might still be damp. I had to wash the blood off of it.”

Slowly, the man reached out, as if not believing that Yuuri would really return it to him. As soon as his fingers touched the fabric, he snatched it from Yuuri’s hands, folding it to his chest and burying his face in the bundle, his long hair falling like a privacy curtain over the moment.

When he raised his head again, his eyes were sparkling. He stared up at Yuuri with something akin to awe as a slow smile stretched across his face. It nearly staggered Yuuri. He hadn’t missed that the man was beautiful before, but when he smiled, it was earth-shaking, and Yuuri couldn’t help but smile in return.

“I’m Yuuri,” he said, pressing a hand to his own chest and feeling the chill of his skin. “Yuuri Katsuki.”

The man knelt up and reached out with one hand, until his fingers pressed between Yuuri’s over his heart. His hands were cold as icicles, but his blue eyes were warm as he smiled. “Yuuri,” he repeated, like it was the only word he’d ever known.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on every platform ever under the username of "louciferish".
> 
> If you've ever had an interest in sending me prompts, I'm currently writing fic by request in exchange for proof of donations to non-profits that support reproductive rights, and you can find more information about that [on twitter](https://twitter.com/louciferish/status/1128663167658340353).


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